and I want to kiss you but I can't. Down on the river by the sugar plant.

" A notion of character, not so much discredited as simply forgotten, once held that people only came into themselves partway through their lives. They woke up, were they lucky enough to have consciousness, in the act of doing something they already knew how to do: feeding themselves with currants.
Walking the dog.
Knotting up a broken bootlace.
Singing antiphonally in the choir.
Suddenly: This is I, I am the girl singing this alto line off-key, I am the boy loping after the dog, and I can see myself doing it as, presumably, the dog cannot see itself. How peculiar! I lift on my toes at the end of the dock, to dive into the lake because I am hot, and while isolated like a specimen in the glassy slide of summer, the notions of hot and lake and I converge into a consciousness of consciousness -- in an instant, in between launch and landing, even before I cannonball into the lake, shattering both my reflection and my old notion of myself.

This was what was once believed. Now it seems hardly to matter when and how we become ourselves -- or even what we become. Theory chases theory about how we are composed. the only constant: the abjuration of personal responsibility.

We are the next thing the Time Dragon is dreaming, and nothing to be done about it.

We are the fanciful sketch of wry Lurline, we are droll and ornamental, and no more culpable than a sprig of lavender or a sprig of lightning, and nothing to be done about it.

We are an experiment in situation ethics set by the Unnamed God, which in keeping its identity a secret also cloaks the scope of the experiment and our chances of success or failure at it -- and nothing to be done about it.

We are loping sequences of chemical conversions, acting ourselves converted. We are twists of genes, acting ourselves twisted; we are wicks of burning neuroses, acting ourselves wicked. And nothing to be done about it. And nothing to be done about it. "

--Gregory Maguire



Astounding to me, is all the things we do in a day without thinking about them. Without examining the consequences -- be they distant or quickly incoming; we act and react and don't ever really imagine that we are tiny little fingertips tapping on the water of the world, creating ripples and waves.

I enjoying taking a warm shower. Except for this morning, after I had read National Geographic's November (?) article on Global Warming. Although not directly related to biofuel, which really was what the artile was about, my extra-lenghthy shower is still a gesture of apathy, considering the minute consequences which each choice we make commits to the general picture.

I turn the hot water on, and alter it little by little to get the temperature just right. I'm both picky and fickle; I'm one of those constant temperature adjusters who fiddles with an eight of a centimeter trying to get in the tiny fraction of my acceptable temperature zone. Honestly, I get ridiculously cranky when my elbow accidentally hits the spigot and I plunge myself into cold water, or when I'm fourth in the house to get into the bathroom and have to wait for an hour for there to be any hot water at all.

I am not always like this. When I was in Salvador, there weren't any warm showers ever -- there wasn't any hot water, actually. Not for showering, and not for dish-washing either. The former was the least of my concerns at the time.

But imagine how cranky the world will be if (or, when) our world climate raises by just barely 2 degrees:

National Geographic estimates that even with drastic cuts in our planet's CO2 emissions, the average global surface temp is due to rise almost 2 degrees. Doesn't seem like much? Below are the most important issues which have already begun as global temperatures increase, with effects increasing in intensity as temperatures rise even 2 degrees.

WATER:
Now:
- Increasing precipitation in moist tropics and high-latitude regions. Rain falls in heavier downpours, with the risk of more frequent flooding in both wet and dry areas.
- Increasing drought and declining water supply in mid-latitudes and semiarid low latitudes.
- Hundreds of millions of people face increasing risk of water shortages. Causings include decreased river runoff and loss of glaciers and snowpack.
FOOD:
At +1 degree increase:
- Cereal crops will increase in mid to high altitudes, and begin to decrease in low latitudes. (Low latitudes include Sub-Saharan Africa, Austrailia, the lower Pacific Islands and most of South America.
At +3.5 degree increase:
- Cereal crops decrease across mid to high- latitude regions, and greatly decrease in low latitude regions.
HEALTH:
Now:
- Increasing illness and death from heat waves, storms, floods, droughts, and fires. Rises in malnutrition.
- Changing distribution of insects that carry diseases such as malaria and dengue.
At +3 degree increase:
- Worldwide healthcare systems substantially strained.
COASTS:
Now:
- Storms and rising sea level cause growing erosion of coasts.
At +2 degree increase:
- Coastal flooding affects millions more people each year. Small islands and low-lying regions in Asia and Africa are especially vulnerable.
At +3 degree increase:
- Worldwide, about 30% of coastal wetlands are lost.
ECOSYSTEMS:
Now:
- Range of many animals and plants pushed into higher latitudes or higher elevations.
- Coral bleaching increases in the tropics.
At +.5 degree increase:
- Oceans acidify.
At +1.5 degree increase:
- Up to 30% of species face risk of extinction.
- Most corals bleached.
At +2 degree increase:
- Ecosystems become carbon sources as permafrost thaws and vegetation burns or decays.
At +2.5 degree increase:
- Widespread death of coral reefs.
At +4 degree increase:
Up to 40% of species face risk of extinction.

Each bullet point is a tipping point, which means once we hit that point, the damage has already begun and there's almost no going back. Most of these have already begun, particularly catastrophic in poorer nations without the means to adapt and recover from the influx of environmental disasters. Even here.


It bothers me when I think about how many times I make uninformed (or perhaps even apathetic) choices and say nothing to be done about it. No, more than "bothers".
What stronger words I wish I had to explain how these things really DO sit in my chest, gnawing away at me. What sacrifices do we all have to make to save our own planet? We got fuel from rocks, and that was easy. Henry Ford discovered how cheap and easy crude oil was, and it was like a dream. But the next step won't be a dream, and it won't be easy or cheap either. It will hard, and it'll be a sacrifice. To agree to the alternatives in fuel, and living, when we know that the alternatives will be more difficult. More expensive. Will take more committment and more work and more research. And no immediate results, perhaps... no instant gratification; and knowing that the simple way will always exist -- to ignore the problems, to pretend that everything will right itself and that all our dealings will work themselves out in time. But they don't, do they? And even if we sweep the things that bother us under the rug, even if we play blind and deaf and dumb, even if we pretend like we never noticed at all... its still there.

As exhausting as it is to constantly live in that reality -- a reality where we deal with the consequences of our actions, and hold ourselves accountable. A reality where the truth is that some truths are ugly and awful, and probably our fault... and that we have to look at it right in the face anyway.

i thank you lord almighty up above just for sending out the F train to me. so thankful for all the unspent love that i save up in the jar of money.

Uhhh, I *should* be cooking for Thanksgiving dinner right now. Butttt I'm going to do a political blog post, cause I'm just so damn thankful for my freedom o' speech.

And also I'm a procrastinator.

This post is dedicated to Beau Sia.

I'm willing to admit that I'm in love with Beau.
Well, thats not quite accurate -- I'm actually in love with slam poetry. I'm in love with art that intersects with social justice. And I'm in love with artists who use their art to interrogate racism. And I'm also in love with the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe (NPS) National Poetry Slam.

I'm actually fuckin' FILLED with love for all God's creations -- but most especially with Beau Sia, who covers all those bases beautifully.

Take this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJCkHu3trKc

[Note: a) I know, I know, I'm an ass cause I'm too lazy to embed my videos. b) I have to credit the finding of this video to a link a facebook friend posted.]

I have two commentaries:

1. I don't want to be represented by Rosie O'Donnell. Not as a feminist, and not as a queer woman (even though the latter part of that identity is harder for me to own, but thats a whole other post). Just because we both happen to have that in common doesn't mean that I identify with her in any way, nor do I want her representing or defending me. In the same way I don't think Bill O'Reilly represents me as an American, just because we both happen to live here and are alive. I've heard it said several times, both in popular culture and from people here at home, that Rosie's word is the word of all lesbians. Like the public defender of what a "typical lesbian is and thinks" (thats a direct overheard quote).
Of course. All women think alike too. It would follow that so do all queer women.

2. I see all this shit in the comments of that video about "reverse racism". I also had a really disturbing conversation the other day where that argument was used. I use the word 'argument' loosely, btw.

A few notes about "reverse racism".
Its an empty phrase.
"Reverse racism" does not = a logical argument.
The very word, racism, has an entire legacy of discrimination, violence, and inequality behind it. "Reverse racism" carries no such history, and thusly no such truth. Tacking on reverse 'cause you feel slighted in conversations about race doesn't make it a real concept.

The term is offensive simply in its ignorant usage. I mean, that right there is high scoring on the Richter scale of What-The-Fuck. But even its etymology offends -- a white majority appropriating a word with years of struggle behind it. Huh. Thats so new and different!

As for all those "GOD, have a sense of humor. It was just a JOKE." comments --
Oh damn, how deftly they point out the error in anyone feeling offended... boiling down an entire culture to a sing-song slur is *absolutely* not exploiting stereotypes with no intellectual insight or forethought! After all, the perfect joke recipe IS that perfect blend of arrogance and racial privilege.

I'm always wanting to disclaim myself and say: I'm not any kind of expert on racism. That's because I'm privledged and white. But I recognize that. And I try to call 'em as I see 'em. Sometimes I'll fuck it up, but I'm trying to engage as best as I can.


Anyhow, to close (so I can go eat), let me reiterate my love for Beau, by iterating his love for love. First year I did an embarrassingly terrible job of performing the first few stanzas of this poem for an acting class performance, effectively schooling myself in why I should stick to my day job.
I don't know, maybe it wasn't *that* bad -- ask someone who witnessed it, ha ha. Regardless, it was my initiation to Beau, and it really blows me away every time I hear him perform it.

"Love" by Beau Sia

I think love is the most beautiful thing
in the world,
and I don't give a fuck,
because I have no original ideas.

I'm a pathetic man
whose goal is to read poetry
in order
to get women
to fall in love with him,
and you'd think I was reprimanding myself
and revealing my horrible dark side
by saying that,
but I was really saying
"women who hear this, fall in love with me, or else,"
because that's what it comes down to --
an ultimatum,
life or death,
and sure, maybe I'm being extreme,
but you walk around and tell me
that things aren't extreme,
jesus,
I've seen a man jack off to a gap window display,
so don't tell me that love isn't important.

and maybe you didn't get that series of lines,
that's OK,
most of them are subtext
designed to impress people
who know too much about art,
all you need to listen to is
the 12 percent
which contain words like "fuck,"
and "ass,"
and "ride my dongstick, you naughty schoolgirl."
because in a poem about love
we all need to know the relevant things,
because we're all looking for the complete definition of love,
if only we could open our encyclopedia brittanicas
and look up love and know,
but love isn't that easy.

they say cupid loved my so called life
and when the show was cancelled
cupid cried and cried and cried and
decided that he was going to fuck up
all of humanity,
and this is why china has a trouble with its birthrate
and arkansas rhymes with date rape
and iraq is iraq,
and the fat lipo-sucked out of california
could be
its own island.

but this isn't a poem about geography,
this is a poem about love,
the bane of my existence,
the reason why I hate valentine's day
and halloween,
which is about ghosts
and I think you know where I'm going here.
I'm going to the land of girlfriends of halloweens past,
and maybe I've only got three ghosts in this land,
but this doesn't mean that they don't bring their friends,
who are the ghosts of girls who have rejected me,
because girls rarely travel alone in this land.
lydia is from this land.

I used to kiss her
while listening to
the cure's "just like heaven,"
now I don't see her anymore,
so that song makes me sad,
why must we associate music with
our love lives?
I'm not trying to be profound here,
I'm just saying that music really takes me
back, way back,
and I can't explain the memory process involved in that,
because I am not a psychology major,
and maybe
my problem with picking up women
has to do with me always asking,
"what's your major?"
but that only makes me as cheesy
as 90 percent of guys
looking for women,
and 86 percent of them have women,
so what's the deal here?
maybe I shouldn't think of women in terms
of picking them up,
and maybe I should open up my sensitive side,
but really,
the sensitive side sucks.
I've been there.
you can only imagine the kinds of sweaters
they make you wear.
it's not fair,
love is not fair,
and war is not fair,
and I don't care what anyone has to say about
any of that,
I feel unloved,
I'm sorry I need people
to tell me I'm cool,
I'm just that way.
aren't you?
am I the only one?
I know that I can't be that
misunderstood.

but you don't want to
understand me!
you just want to hear the part
where I talk about my small dick again,
because the asian man will always be plagued
by this rumor
until he is brave enough to fling it out
and say,

"HA! WE ARE GIGANTIC!"

this is not the direction
I wanted to take
this poem.
honestly, I just want to be in the arms
of my true love, in a house, in a room,
in a wonderful, perfect world with our
two children,
a boy and a girl,
helga and lamar,
but maybe I shouldn't have said this,
woody allen taught us
that marriage is a death trap.

I'm almost as old as his girlfriend.
she could be the long lost sister
I've been looking for,
maybe my mother gave her away
when we lived in china,
wait, I never lived in china.
I think I've begun lying in this poem.
I was hoping to talk about love
for 3.4 minutes
and then
come to a conclusion,
somehow defining love
within the poem,
but
I don't have any answers
and I'm looking for help from anyone,
because love has got me fucked up
and dying,
because I feel retarded without anyone to hold me,
and maybe that's sentimental,
but what's wrong with sentimental?

I just need love --

to self: fuck you, I'm OK!
you see, I can't even decide what I need
much less understand what I'm saying.
you see, all I'm saying
is
someone love me.



ps- i'm vaguely sure this performance is on youtube, and/or his site is http://www.beausia.com/. you should listen to it, since it gives it a totally different context.

pps- I may have posted this several hours (after I said I was) while the dark chocolate food-high wore off. bahhhh sue me.

call me back when the war is over. call me back when your boyfriend's gone. i'm aware of your oscillations. don't belive I'm the only one.

This is part of a chapter of my Div III, so in a way I'm kind of cheating and recycling my own material. But then again, no one other than my committee will probably ever read my Div III, so in reality I'm just broadcasting my thesis to a larger (albeit both anonymous and perhaps non-existent) audience.

A note about Div III: Div III Hampshire students are a lot like annoyingly proud parents who just had their first kids.

Have you ever met one of those obsessive new parents, who just has to relate everything back to their new baby? They'll regale you with late-night bottle feeding stories about each coo and burp until you want to claw your ears out. Since, of course, no one has EVER had a baby before, this must all be fascinating, since obviously they're a veritable pioneer in the field of reproduction.
And as such, every moment of her child's development must be of paramount importance to you, because who doesn't want to hear a two hour detailed retelling of baby Cindy's new reluctant acceptance of peas?
Of course, it wouldn't matter if you were talking about rocket science or drink mixers -- suddenly it has somehow all related back to babies again and "speaking of babies, you'll never guess what baby Harry did yesterday..." and you're left standing there thinking "Wait. How did we get back here? I would've sworn I successfully steered the conversation far away from this."

Div III students are eerily similar: You get to listen to their incessant rambling about this and such inconsequential realization they've had about the whole process, and life, and academia, and this new idea which amazingly occurred to them at 3am, after a bottle of Jack Daniels. And you get to hear about each turn and twist of their writing process, and every change in direction and new concept revealing itself to them like all the wondrous workings of the universe. Of course they assume that everyone wants to hear about all their mental crap, which turns into verbal diarrhea, pouring out of their mouths at every opportunity.

Sorry, do I sound jaded? Pff.

Anyhow, I shouldn't even be talking, since I *am* a Div III student, and since I'm already so immodest that I think everyone wants to hear my ruminations on each topic which crosses my brain. (Note: this blog.) Luckily, you can navigate away from here with merely a click, and I can assume that since this is a one-sided conversation, that you're in rapt attention.


"'Why, in a body of such exquisite design, are there a thousand flaws and frailties that make us vulnerable to disease.'

'The great mystery of medicine is the presence, in a machine of exquisite design, of what seems to be flaws, frailties, and makeshift mechanisms that give rise to most disease.'

My question in all of this has slowly but forcefully become: Why DO we get sick?

According to Randolph Nesse, a professor of Darwinian Medicine, the causes of all disease extend far beyond our complex bodies as they exist now.

Instead of asking why a person gets sick, he asks instead why sickness exists at all. Not in an existential "why are we here and what are we for" way, but in terms of evolution and human history. Medicine looks at a single body in a vacuum, as a self-sufficient machine which malfunctions and breaks down by nature of its design. Yet every human body is not only the product of two other bodies which created it, it is the product of thousands of years of biology and evolution. Much like a finely tuned machine, each piece and part was designed and placed there for a reason. To understand disorder, you must also understand how harmoniously the entire body works together in the context of its creation.

Now, this is not to say that the causes of all ailments boils down to evolution. Rather, many other determinants, like the toxins we are exposed to every day, random accidents, stress, diet, parental DNA, affect our health. To ignore any set of factors, be they the proximal or evolutionary set, is to ignore information about the body which would help us to better understand disease and the body as a whole.

The Darwinian Causes of Disease are described as 6 distinct categories: Defenses, Infection, Novel Environments, Genes, Design Compromises, and Evolutionary Legacies.

1. DEFENSES. Defenses are those mechanisms our body has to protect ourselves, like a cough. A cough, which is bothersome and can lead to other problems, is not actually the problem at all. The problem is that there is something in your lungs that needs to be expelled. A cough is the response of the body to a problem. (Stopping the cough, of course, wouldn't solve the problem. The problem is fluid in the lungs, or mucous, of infection, etc.)

2. INFECTION. Self-explanatory.

3. NOVEL ENVIRONMENTS. Evolutionarily, we were created and bred and molded for certain environments. Counter that with human migration, fatty diets, drugs, air-conditioning, cars, pollution. etc., and there you are. Imagine putting a turtle in the Sahara. He wouldn't last very long, either.

4. GENES. This is a big one.

All things considered, the number of harmless genetic mutations which occur, versus the number of harmful ones, is fairly equal.

Picture flipping a coin. You only want to get heads every time. Of course, you will eventually be disappointed when the penny lands head-up, which will eventually happen. That's just how probability and chance work. But now picture a million coins. If you still want them all to land with Abraham's shiny face staring up at you, you're about to be seriously disappointed. The fact is, the more times you're flipping, and the more coins you have, the more times tails is going to appear.

Now, human genetics and evolution is a little more complicated than flipping a coin. So what happens when you do land tails up?

Here is a mutation. Your genes have mutated, so something in the normal process has gone awry, and unfortunately, that part of your body is "defective". Evolutions solution is that, most likely, you will:
1. Not reproduce, since you are (logically) a) not a good mate and b) might not even live long enough to reproduce, depending on the severity of the mutation.
2. Simply die.

This is the unfortunate mechanism of evolution.

Ok, now lets say you have a beneficial gene. How does "evolution" know that this gene is beneficial?
Answer:
It doesn't.

Mutations (whether we consider them harmful or harmless), in the eyes of natural selection and evolution, are neither positive nor negative, unless they improve your ability to mate, or effectively nix you from the mating tract entirely. Then they become positive or negative, but only in that they have affected your ability to make more copies of yourself and pass on your genetic material.

Every mutation has a context which dictates its value. If you're a naked mole rat born with superman strength eyesight, you may pass that mutation on, and you may not. The superman eyesight isn't hindering, nor is it helping, your daily moleish life. Your value within the species isn't changed in any way -- you live underground, and eyesight is worthless there.

Now, if you are a lion, and your mutation is superhero eyesight, this mutation can become of value. Your role as a hunter is greatly aided -- thus making you a better hunter because of the mutation, and because of that, a better candidate for some lady lioness who is looking for an effective provider to mate with.
Now the mutation becomes beneficial. This mutation, in some secondary way, helps you make more offspring; you pass on more genes.

This doesn't always happen. Nature wants to keep the status quo. Like all things, we are perpetually trying to achieve homeostasis. There very well may have been genetic mutations, which by chance, causes the bearer to be able to breathe in outer space. Fantastic!

Only... no one would ever know, because here on earth, that mutation didn't benefit the person in any way. Your environment, again, dictates the value of a mutation. And what we as humans might see as valuable, is not always agreed with by natural selection and evolution.

5. DESIGN COMPROMISES.
Some "design flaws", or illnesses, things we think of as problems, are actually indications of evolution's compromises.
We have back problems, but of course, our species can also walk upright. If you'd like to give up walking upright to eliminate your back problems, by all means. You have permission to crawl.

6. EVOLUTIONARY LEGACIES.
A.k.a. - You gotta work with what you got.
Sometimes, what you got happens to be so convoluted and complexly designed that you're kind of screwed. So, you make due with what you've been given.

I'm sure all this theory is of little comfort to someone diagnosed with brain cancer.

But there it is. The most important part, however, is understanding that Darwinism is N-O-T eugenics. Eugenics is a reaction to Darwinism.

The idea of Darwinian Medicine is simply a system.


Humans, by our nature, are constantly trying to rise above our humble animal beginnings.
We read and write, we think and feel, we build useless and useful systems and structures which we argue about. We create words and names for emotions which we can't even point to or locate. We create new systems of communicating about our lack of communication. We murder and reproduce with and without reason. We have art, blenders, music, Christmas lights and libraries.

And we are all wild little Icaruses -- smart enough to build the wings, but not smart enough to stay away from the sun. We create our own problems by our very humanity, by our very existence as what we are. You might say we are too smart for our own good.

But lest we forget where we came from... we are still subject, in the end, to the same system we were built in. As self-aware and somewhat intelligent creatures, we desire to be healthy, to live longer, and we fear our own mortality and defects. Disease is almost a reminder of where we're from. In that framework, Darwinian medicine is not malicious, nor embedded with any sort of meaning at all, other than what it is -- it is where we came from. Its the rules we must play by.

And if we can: by our uniqueness in our comprehension that we exist at all, and might exist further -- its a set of rules we might learn to bend, right or wrong, to try and better our chances in the game.

tempted by the fruit of another.

Here is your biochemistry lesson of the day.

A human being is driving. A human being is in a car accident. This human being's hypothalamus, stimulated by the perception of outside events, begins to release CRH, a hormone which travels to the pituitary glands. At the pituitary gland, CRH binds to secondary sites, where adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) is released. ACTH travels to the adrenal cortex, where is stimulates the adrenal glands to produce and secrete cortisol. Cortisol, also known as the "stress hormone", affects almost every tissue in the body.

Cortisol, once its released, will circulate through the whole body. It raises blood pressure, starts the breakdown of proteins and stored complex sugars (energy supplies) in the body, suppresses the immune system, decreases bone formation, and reduces seratonin levels in the brain.

Interestingly, cortisol also affects memory. A rush of cortisol would cause the brain to store quick short-term memories -- flashbulb memories. Too much cortisol impedes the brain's ability to lay down a new memory at all, and also makes it more difficult to access already stored long-term memories.

Cortisol, in women, also stimulates the release of oxytocin. Oxytocin, which has a minor counter-active effect on cortisol, also dictates how the mind will react to stress levels. Oxytocin is the same hormone released when women are giving birth; it creates a sense of calm, well-being, a desire to nuture, and positive feelings of attachment. Oxytocin is also released during an orgasm.

Not coincidentally, oxytocin also acts as an anesthetic for the mind. When released, it prevents storage of traumatic or painful memories.

So at both ends of the spectrum - during times of great stress and at times of pleasure, the human body tries to protect itself. (Turns out those ends are closer than we think.) It keeps us from remembering the reality of an event, which would, in retrospect, be recalled as less painful, less unfortunate, better. Memories through a hazy rearview mirror.

So when you remember:
a horrible car accident
birth
mindblowing sex

you may not be remembering it perhaps as it was, but as your body wants you to remember it.

Sometimes I spend many long days working tirelessly on my senior thesis, also known here in the valley as a Div III. Senior thesis is an understatement -- Div III is more like a graduate research project meeting your entire courseload and then wrapping its little tentacles into your whole life. Everyone fourth year at Hampshire lives, eats and breathes Div III.

Mine is on wellness, sickness, and healing, specifically in regards to holistic medicine as it structures itself around Multiple Sclerosis, HIV, and Cancer. This might sound dark and intense. And honestly... it is. Well, not dark, although it could degenerate into that if I wasn't keeping a watchful eye on it (and on my perspective). Its a difficult Div III, to write about suffering and healing, and inevitably, death. But I also get to write about hope, and survival, and healing. I get frustrated, of course. Anyone who is passionate about something, and has all their hopes set on writing the great American Novel about that topic is bound and set to get a whole lotta frustration. I'm trying to ignore the prospect of a product, and focus instead on the journey.

Point is (and I'm sure I'll have a 20 other 'point is's about my Div III as the weeks go by) that while writing about such deep, complex, and personal topics, I sometimes let myself get really wrapped up in the sad and troubling aspects of both the American treatment of disease, and the sad reality of sickness and death. That sounds morose and perhaps it is. But this happens only infrequently, and I temper it by remembering that what I'm writing has a lot to do with NOT letting that happen, and about NOT suffering. Maybe even about spirituality. We'll see.

So, when that moment happens where I start wanting to curl up and begin to think: "Uh, maybe I should just go back to being naive and not acknowledging pain at all", I listen to this song and it cheers me up.

Excuse the blatant... well I don't know what this blatantly is, but its blatantly something and forgive me for that!

When the Saints - Sara Grove

Lord I have a heavy burden
of all I’ve seen and know
It’s more than I can handle.

But your word is burning like a fire
shut up in my bones
and I can’t let it go...

And when I’m weary
and overwrought
with so many battles left unfought

I think of Paul and Silas in the prison yard
I hear their song of freedom
rising to the stars
And when the Saints
go marching in
I want to be one of them.

Lord it’s all that I can’t carry
and cannot leave behind;
it all can overwhelm me.
but I think of all who’ve gone before them
and lived the faithful life, their courage compels me.
And when I’m weary and overwrought
with so many battles left unfought

I think of Paul and Silas in the prison yard
I hear their song of freedom
rising to the stars
I see the shepherd Moses in the Pharaohs court
I hear his call for freedom for the people of the Lord

And when the Saints
go marching in
I want to be one of them.
And when the Saints
go marching in
I want to be one of them...

I see the long quiet walk along the Underground Railroad
I see the slave awakenin' to the value of her soul
I see the young missionary at the angry spear
I see his family returning with no trace of fear
I see the long hard shadows of Calcutta nights
I see the sisters standing by the dying mans side
I see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor
I see the man with a passion come and kicking down that door...
I see the man of sorrow
and his long troubled road
I see the world on his shoulders and my easy load.

And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of them.
And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of them.
I want to be one of them.

one sweet love.

Not January 1st; Today is the first day of a new year. Specifically, of mine.

And because this is MY New Year, I have some resolutions.

-In this year of my life I will take real risks. Not "I'm going to drink a tank of mercury just to see what happens" risks, actually scary, life-altering, risks. The things I'm really frightened to do, I'm not going to hide from, I'm going to take them on face first. I will not be scared of anything.

- This year, I will tell the truth. Even when it hurts me to do so. Even when it'd be easier to lie, I will let truth be my identity. Sat nam.

- I will stop worrying about who feels what towards me and simply feel however I feel towards them. I will let go when its time to let go, and I'll fight like a real fuckin warrior for the friends who are in my life. No more putting off letters, emails, phone calls... no more selfishness about being open.

- I will wake up every day and just be grateful. I will remember this feeling I have right now; free and deliriously happy. This year has been wonderful and thrilling, and also long, and hard, and heartbreaking. But thats ok.

- I'm going to start forgiving myself and everyone else. Pema Chodron says "come as you are". Every day can be like this, not just today. Life can be like this.

I'm having a mind-blowingly fantastic day, (even though not everything is perfect). I did things for myself that I really wanted to do, got some really thoughtful gifts and I had a wonderful night last night where everyone bought me drinks, and random people dedicated songs to me. Not bad.

And probably tomorrow this high will be over and I'll feel ordinary. But... BUT - I don't aplogize for that. Even if I seem like an ass for being so dizzyily thrilled -- I want this. I feel more alive like this, and I'm going to bottle it up for the next year of my life.

you might be the girly who shall end all girls.

sick of politics right now - three poems instead.




If I make this new tulip stem the viaduct
or underside of your wrist and lick
the branched artery, I arrive in Rome
on the other side of a season sudden as a kidnap note.

I lean against the famous fountain and watch
the waiter refresh the glass of marigolds precisely
ringed by petals. Isn't this every painting
I've ever studied? (I should be in France) but there

you are, that sip of cappuccino, so delicious
I sketch and title it: Alone on the Terranean Sea. Then
I simply walk over and pick up your cup. You are the coast
of October, my graduate art fellowship above the café,

the technical modeling, windows wide, gauze drapes
puffed. I can't stop breathing when breath is cinnamon, over
and over, lineament, rags, turpentine negligence, afternoon
canvas. The mysteries of light, and later when you said

"Abriera," I did enough for you to lay down
your brush and draw the chiffon scarf across my tongue,
"la lingua," like petals or air, nothing, a glass ring,
the curve of this cup rim, this lace, this froth.

Beth Simon - Taste Is

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Every cricket here has mated.
Hear it in the distant tone and timbre
of a tired, old drone: a chorus
for those who now wear only
white robes over lost bodies—

that chorus which for us rises evenings
in the cancer, neuralgic, and geriatric wards,
where all are far beyond triage.
Each moan, we know, echoes
a voice from that boundless night
preceding the afterlife.

Forget your body. Forget the afterlife.

God, give me back wolverine passion,
ability to dig my way into dirt road
before truck tires crush, before
hunters come with guns.

Bring sky. Settle my mind.
No, fill my veins with red ants.
Never allow my blood to pool or cool
or stand placid as the surgeon's before his work.

Thunder among my muscles. Hail
upon my bleached bones. Raise nations;
raise wind. Bow wheat stalks
in rivers. Scatter my seed
to those only with wings.

Kevin Rabas - Reseed


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Let’s not talk of healing yet
nor making love
nor of ingenious devices
replacing touch.
And this is not theoretical:
A poem with calipers to hold a
heart
so it will want to go on beating.

Adrienne Rich - excerpt from Calibrations